"When you pour garbage on the earth and then you pour milk
and then in three months the garbage will become flowers and the milk
will become flowers too."

We invoke your name, Kshitigarbha. We aspire to learn
your way so as to be present where there is darkness, suffering, oppression,
and despair, so that we may bring light, hope, relief, and liberation to
those places.

We are determined not to forget about or abandon those
who are in desperate situations. We will do our best to establish contact
with them when they cannot find a way out of their suffering and when their
cries for help, justice, equality, and human rights are not heard.

We know that hell can be found in many places on earth
and we do not want to contribute to making more hells on earth. Rather
we want to help unmake the hells that already exist. We will practice to
realize the qualities of perseverance and stability that belong to the
earth so that, like the earth, we can always be supportive and faithful
to those who need us.

Jizo is the Japanese name for the Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha, the archetypal
embodiment of the awakened mind whose specific talent is to bring peace
into those places where there is the greatest suffering. Jizo is associated
with the Earth and, like the earth, nurtures, heals, and protects.
Jizo is also
closely associated with children.

--Excerpt from a Dharma Talk by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Ksitigarbha (Earth Store Bodhisattva) who vowed to save all living beings
in hell embodies truly great qualities of the Buddha. He vowed that he
would never abandon you. Wherever there are people suffering the most,
there also is Ksitigarbha. In this very world there are hells where people
undergo the utmost suffering. We decide never to abandon them, rather we
try our best to approach and to support them. Ksitigarbha is these qualities
of not abandoning. He never abandons anyone even if that person is horribly
difficult.

A lot of us have been in countries where people are deprived of human
rights that live in oppression. In some countries, people are so desperate
that we feel that we cannot communicate the reality of their suffering
with the outside world. Sometimes we even have to pour gasoline on our
own body in order to burn ourselves, so people in the outside world will
know that people are suffering terribly here. In the world, there are a
number of those who are unfairly jailed, they are suffering a lot and they
are desperate. If we don't do anything for them, we fail in our Vow. Nowadays,
there are a number of people who want to be Ksitigarbha and try to relieve
the suffering of people in desperate situations. We live in a society where
we have plenty of material luxuries, we are jealous for this little thing,
but we don't realize that there are people who are in jail unfairly and
they just want to be a person living with dignity. They are thrown in jail,
and they suffer a lot. To learn the way of Ksitigarbha is to reach your
hand into these most desperate situations, to those who are deprived of
human rights, who are put in jail in many totalitarian countries.

We must realize that there are those who have never heard the name of
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva yet they manifest these qualities every day. In
big cities like Chicago, New York, Manila, Washington D.C., there are a
lot of hells also. In Paris there is hell, too. So we have to discover
these hells and to dismantle them in order to help people and relieve their
suffering. Sometimes we may have the notion that we didn't contribute to
the creation of that hell. In fact, we are constantly creating this hell
by our forgetfulness, jealousy and craving for money. We do not see that
hell exists around us, so we continue to live our lives in a way that is
harmful to other beings. We are creating hell around us constantly. We
must make it clear that we do not want to make more hells. By our way of
living mindfully, we will not act in a harmful way that would create hell
around us.

When you act or speak unmindfully, you cause a lot of suffering around
you. People suffer because of your unmindfulness. The Sanskrit name Ksitigarbha
means "the Bodhisattva of the earth, Earth Store." I vow to develop the
stability and solidity of the earth, in order to become faithful and without
discrimination, like the earth. The earth never discriminates between perfume
and urine. The earth absorbs everything and transforms it into flowers.
So I want to learn the quality of the earth, very solid, very profound
and stable, very rich, no discrimination, in order to be the support for
all those who need my support. I vow to become all of these qualities of
the earth so that I will be a great support for many people. When you pour
garbage on the earth and then you pour milk and then in three months the
garbage will become flowers and the milk will become flowers too. The earth
has the quality to release and to accept, the quality of accepting everything
and releasing every negative thing. Can we be the support of somebody else
if we don't have the solidity of the earth? If you see within yourself
that you are not yet solid enough, you must train yourself to become more
solid.

There is one man who has the name Nicholas. His letter represents many
thousands of similar letters we have received. Nicholas is on death row.
He has been waiting to be executed for seventeen years. He had the opportunity
to read Living Buddha, Living Christ in jail. On the 28th of December,
1997, he wrote:

“Dear Thay, ... I have been on death row for 17 years already. My life
has had a lot of suffering during this time, a lot of despair. But in me
there is a will to transcend all these psychological and emotional wounds.
These wounds are with me and grow in jail. There are days where I struggle
very hard against my anger, and there are moments when I feel I cannot
transcend my anger and hate. I feel that I am crushed by my hate. But strangely,
I learn to live simply from that moment of learning, the hatred toward
those who have been very hard to me, cruel to me, my only vow is to survive
without becoming crazy because of this hate. I hope to survive without
hate, without hatred toward those who put me in jail, who have tortured
me. I don't know how I can do that. I don't know how I can transcend the
moment when I feel that I will go crazy or I think that I am going insane…
I am very grateful that in jail, after 17 years, I can still keep my sanity.
I am not crazy yet. And with that gratitude, I can treasure what happens
in my life. When I see the sunset, I feel a lot of happiness. I sit behind
my jail door. I can enjoy the sunset through the little window in
my cell. In the last cell that I had, for 12 years, I was only able to
look at a brick wall.. In my new jail, there is a window where I can see
the city with a lot of trees. And the first time I came in touch with trees,
I was so moved that I cried. When I read your book, it was the first time
I learned to dwell peacefully in the present moment. I understood
that teaching right away… In this situation, I have a lot of difficulties,
but I learn to treasure the short moments of awareness, living in jail.
During these moments of awareness the fear and despair in me can not master
me, and I tune in to the humanness in me, and I can behave like a Buddhist.
I believe that if I continue, I will find transformation. I know that if
one day I am executed in a violent way, I will be able to accept that.
I wish that from this garbage, I can transform into a flower, I can find
peace in me. During my search for peace, I have learned to accept myself
as well as those around me… This letter is to tell you, Thay, that the
human nature exists in me and to tell you that a death row prisoner can
find peace and joy in hell.”

If you are peaceful, if you are calm, if you are happy, if you can smile,
then the people in your family will smile and in your society will smile,
and they can enjoy the peace radiating from you. So we must see that Ksitigarbha
is not merely a legendary personality. Ksitigarbha is in you, in me, and
in many others everywhere. We only need to train ourselves to become a
Ksitigarbha, then our hand will be able to reach into the places of the
most terrible suffering, darkness and oppression.